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Full Idea
Davidson claims that events can only be individuated causally.
Gist of Idea
Events can only be individuated causally
Source
report of Donald Davidson (The Individuation of Events [1969], 3) by Jonathan Schaffer - Causation and Laws of Nature 3
Book Ref
'Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics', ed/tr. Sider/Hawthorne/Zimmerman [Blackwell 2008], p.87
A Reaction
Schaffer rejects this in favour of individuating events by their spatiotemporal locations and intrinsic natures (which seem to be property instantiations, a la Kim). Schaffer was a pupil of David Lewis.
| 18914 | Davidson controversially proposed to quantify over events [Davidson, by Engelbretsen] |
| 9843 | You can't identify events by causes and effects, as the event needs to be known first [Dummett on Davidson] |
| 8278 | The claim that events are individuated by their causal relations to other events is circular [Lowe on Davidson] |
| 14602 | Events can only be individuated causally [Davidson, by Schaffer,J] |
| 14004 | We need events for action statements, causal statements, explanation, mind-and-body, and adverbs [Davidson, by Bourne] |